Postcard #8: subjective experiences

Before leaving for India, when I told people where I was going, they told me, “People either love it or hate it.” I brought the subject up with my mom (who has been to India twice) and she told me “People either see the misery or the beauty.” These black and white statements don’t satisfy me. I want to see both sides, my reality of India.

Now that I am here, and I post videos or images I understand what people don’t want to see. Nobody wants to know about an objective experience where there are beautiful (sacred) cows grazing in a pile of debris near a construction site that is seventy percent organic material and thirty percent plastic packaging and other human produced garbage. I want to show the drain that runs adjacent to my neighborhood. Dirty water and refuse run through a canal that is bordered on both sides by colorful buildings. However, not many people want to see this reality of a developing country and their waste disposal and management difficulties. Beauty is a reality but sometimes realities aren’t beautiful. These aren’t even the most unpleasant things I can show you!